A look at what's going on in Trinidad, on H Street, and in the larger area north of Capitol Hill.

Wednesday, October 01, 2014

Joe Madden, Bartender at the Pug is Missing [UPDATE, He Has Been Found & is Safe]

Photo from Facebook

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UPDATE

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Joe has been found & he is safe.

Joe Madden, who tends bar at the Pug and Brookland's Finest was last seen Monday morning, and his family is seeking any information regarding his whereabouts. Their message appears below:

My son, Joe Madden, has been missing since Monday. Joe is 23, about 6'1"and 170lbs. Hazel eyes. Last seen in NE Washington, DC on Monday morning Sept 29 around 10:30 am. We have filed a police report but there's nothing else the police can do. None of his friends have heard from him since
Sunday. He doesn't have his phone with him.

If you have seen him or have any information that might help us find him, please let me know. And share widely. Help.

If you don't have a cell phone, your car is still at your place and you don't have a Metro smart card, it may be hard to find you for a few days. If the bank ATM isn't showing you withdrawing money, it's just hard to spot you. All they can do is put up some flyers and maybe ask around.

Just some perspective from the MPD response. In cases of a missing person case, notifications are made to local hospitals and the morgue and jail, and that's it. Extra attention and focus is given to those who are children and elderly or those with altered mental status, like severe depression or alzheimers, etc. As adults, it's our right to go off the grid.

He was classified as a critical missing person later on, which is why the flyers came late. I hope he is found safe and healthy soon.

I respectfully disagree. When you ask for the public to get involved and demand the police act. I think those who are asked to assist deserve and explanation. Otherwise we will assume things which will lead to people not bothering or caring next time a neighbor needs help

Guys,I don't have details on what he was doing in New Orleans, & some of the anonymous speculation that has been going on here is not helpful. If you feel like you deserve details, find someone who knows him and ask. It seems like a private matter to me once he was found.

I'm glad to hear it. And when there's a missing adult, there's generally a chance that the person is not in danger. But I'd rather have a few unnecessary lookouts like this than to have no lookout when there really is someone who is in danger.

Similarly, the police respond to a lot of calls of suspicious activity that turn out to be nothing. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't call 911 when we see something that could need police attention.

Inked -- your line of thinking is so predicable. Far less helpful than anonymous speculation are the requests for mobilization of finite city resources to find, as one of my fellow commenters aptly termed, a dipshit son. I hope he and / or his parents do apologize. It is the right thing to do.

8:41,My line of thinking might be predictable. I think it is also correct. When I wrote of speculation here on the blog, I wasn't talking about the comments you now see, but comments I pushed into the spam folder. They were along the lines of the comments one often sees on stories of this kind. Things like: He's a big guy, & wouldn't be easy to kidnap, or this sure sounds like a meth binge, or probably a drug thing. While it's human nature to speculate, I like to think we should maybe refrain from doing so in a public forum that his family might be reading. I know his mother is aware of it (and may actually have looked at the posts here considering she retweeted a link to this post). Comments like these were even left before he was located. Imagine what it might feel like for a member of his family, or even one of his friends, to read if something horrible had happened to him. I had a cousin who could not be found for a few days, and it turned out that something horrible, out of his control (and not drug related), did befall him. I shudder to picture his parents’ reaction to such anonymous speculation.

I know people want answers, and that is human nature. At the same time, most of us did what to help find him? Tweet a link? Retweet something? Share it on Facebook? These are all important & very helpful steps in finding someone who is missing, but I don’t think they entitle any of us to private family information. You won’t find that info on local news orgs, & I won’t post it here either. It is the business of Joe Madden, his family, & his friends.

I will say that I was thrilled with the fact that so many people took to social media to spread word that he was missing. I think many people who live in Trinidad made an extra effort to do so after the tragic death of Michael Kingsbury. But it’s something we could all be better about generally. It was not lost on me (or some others I spoke with) that we had such an amazing mobilization effort for a young white guy (albeit one whose mom is very social media savvy). I’m hoping we can do the same awesome things in the future when other types of folks go missing.

The kid in the case was certainly young and stupid. That can happen when you are 23. Honestly, I had just purchased a ton of tape for flyers I planned to hang and had walked into the Pug when I heard the news from the bartender. My feeling was one of extreme relief. I don’t really care what happened, or how the situation developed. I view that as personal family stuff. I was just glad to learn that he was safe.

As for the family apologizing, I don’t feel that’s necessary. This guy did something stupid and kind of selfish, but he presumably had no idea people were looking for him. His parents and friends were legitimately worried about him, and rightly so. When people go missing, every hour counts. I would challenge you to say it’s selfish to anyone who has had a friend or family member go missing when the outcome was not so happy. The fact is, you don’t generally know what the outcome will be until you know what the outcome actually is. If we have to expend some resources to get the occasional false alarm, I’m ok with that.